


Birthright

by Lise



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor (Movies)
Genre: (they don't know they're dysfunctional yet but they are), Dramatic Irony all over the place here, Dysfunctional Family, Fantastic Racism, Gen, Loki Has Issues, Odin's C+ Parenting, Odin's Parenting, POV Odin, Pre-Canon, Pre-Thor (2011), an attempt at writing Odin, and here we see how secrets become a problem
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-27
Updated: 2015-06-27
Packaged: 2018-04-06 11:56:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,901
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4220805
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lise/pseuds/Lise
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Five times Odin almost told Loki the truth. Almost.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Birthright

**Author's Note:**

> I have written a lot about my complicated feelings on Odin on my tumblr. (For instance [here](http://veliseraptor.tumblr.com/post/85595803945/doctorcakeray-replied-to-your-post-sometime-i) and [here](http://veliseraptor.tumblr.com/post/101642747720/what-do-you-think-of-odin-as-a-father).) Basically, my feelings amount to "well, I'm sure he loved his kids, but man, you fucked up and you fucked up hard." This fic is...I'm not sure where it came from or why I started writing it. I guess thinking about all the opportunities there might have been, throughout Loki's childhood, to drop the bombshell about his heritage. And why those weren't taken. 
> 
> In some ways Odin in this is an unreliable narrator and there's a lot he doesn't see. In other ways, he's really not. This is probably the most sympathetic fic I will write about Odin, possibly ever. 
> 
> Thanks and love to my beta [ameliarating](http://ameliarating.tumblr.com), who is impossibly patient with me.

Odin used his cloak as swaddling, wrapping it securely around the babe (so small; he had not seen many of the Jotnar’s young and wondered if they were all so little to begin with) and tucking him into the crook of his arms. After one last cry, he fell asleep. Odin scrutinized his features, but there was nothing left of the Jotnar in the babe’s small, round face, and his skin when Odin touched a single finger to his cheek was warm – cooler than most Aesir, true, but not so cold as he had been when Odin had first lifted him into his arms.

He was very small, Odin thought. Of course he could not be certain how old the babe was, but even for an Aesir he seemed very fragile. Was that why he had been left here?

It did not matter, Odin thought. No child deserved to be left alone. He thought of Frigga in Asgard, and his own son a cheerful toddler. She would not turn out a babe in need. Had she not spoken of wanting another child? _Someday,_ she had said, and likely this soon was not what she had meant, but…

The babe’s sleeping face was peaceful.

It was not so much a decision that Odin _made_ ; it was more that there was no other decision possible once he’d heard the babe crying.

“Heimdall!” He called. “Open the Bifrost.”

He hoped his old friend would not take issue with their new arrival. Secrecy was paramount, just now; Asgard’s hatred for the Jotnar was savage, and Odin did not think they would take well to their king adopting one of them, even if he was but a helpless baby. There would be time later, once the war was truly over and its wounds had faded.

The Bifrost opened and swept him and the baby up. _Loki,_ Odin thought. Loki would be a good name.

* * *

  **ONE.**

Odin might have feared that Frigga might not appreciate his half-thought adoption of a Jotun child, but he needn’t have. She took to the babe like he was as much her own as Thor, and if she could not nurse him at her own breast she would scarcely let him go long enough for the nurses to give him a single meal.

Thor was at first less welcoming, slightly less than enthusiastic about this unexpected usurper of his territory, but he warmed quickly and soon Odin caught him climbing out of bed and attempting to liberate Loki from his crib. “ _My_ baby,” Thor said, with the kind of stubborn conviction it was difficult to argue. “Loki’s _mine._ ”

Well, Odin thought, at least he cared.

It had occurred to Odin belatedly that the Jotnar might well age differently than the Aesir, and if Thor grew differently than Loki he would have difficult explanations to make. He needn’t have worried, however. Thor sprouted into boyhood with the same enthusiasm he did everything, a strong lad with Frigga’s golden hair and all her charm, and an easygoing nature to go with it. Loki lagged only a little behind, though it became quickly apparent to all onlookers that Loki was as different from his brother as it was possible to be.

If Loki aged at the same pace as expected of an Aesir child, he was…not quite so strong. His limbs stayed as spindly as a colt’s, his chest narrow, and if he matched Thor’s height he was barely half his weight. His complexion was pale, seldom flushed, and his hair was dark as Munnin’s wings. If Thor had easy charm and a smile bright as the sun, Loki was quieter, even solemn, and while he was clever he was also often shy, more apt to use his quick tongue to slip out of trouble than to make friends.

It was inevitable, perhaps, that there would be whispers. Odin quashed the rumors of Frigga’s infidelity ruthlessly – he hoped before they reached his Queen’s ears, but knowing her she had probably heard before he did. Nonetheless, Odin knew that for every rumor he heard, there were twelve more that he had not. Odin encouraged subtle reminders about his own grandmother, who had been dark-haired (and had also, according to rumor, been Jotun-blooded – and Odin wondered about those rumors now, even as he had balked at them as a youth) and watched his boys closely, nervously.

**

“Father?”

Odin looked up from reviewing sheets of accounts and smiled. Loki’s head poked through the door, looking decidedly apprehensive. “Ah, Loki,” he said. “Come in.”

Loki slipped inside and padded over to Odin, who noticed belatedly that he looked as though he was trying to hide some distress. He pushed back his chair and patted his leg. Loki climbed into his lap without protest, though with his gangly limbs it was beginning to be awkward and Odin thought he might have to give up the pleasure soon. Already, perhaps, it had been too long, but it was difficult sometimes for Odin not to look at his skinny younger son and not think of him wailing alone in a desolate snowfield.

“What are you doing?” Loki asked, peering at the desk.

“Looking over the expenses for this month,” Odin said, picking up a sheet and showing it to Loki. “A great deal of numbers.” Loki nodded solemnly.

“Thor is going to have to do this when he is king?” Loki asked. Odin inclined his head, and Loki made a face. “More likely he will just have _me_ do it.”

Odin frowned. “Why do you say that? Your tutor says Thor is very good at mathematics.”

“He _is,_ ” Loki said. “He just gets bored.” Loki heaved a sigh and Odin tried not to smile.

“I am sure your brother will learn patience with time,” Odin said, stroking Loki’s sleek black hair. “But I do not think you came in here to talk to me about Thor’s sums.”

Loki looked down at his feet and fidgeted. “No-o,” he said, after a moment. “That wasn’t it.” Odin waited, and Loki fidgeted some more, biting his lip. “I am – I am _really_ your son, right?”

Odin tried not to fall still. “Of course,” he said, without hesitation. “What sort of a question is that?”

“Sif said – Sif said she’d heard that some people were saying that they’d heard I was – that I wasn’t,” Loki said. Odin frowned, wanting badly to ask who _some people_ were. He’d heard a great deal about this _Sif_ lately, too. Thor spoke of her glowingly, but he wondered if she’d meant to hurt Loki.

“Loki,” he said carefully. “People often say things that aren’t true. Especially about us. People like to talk about important folk, to make themselves sound more important.”

“I know,” Loki said. “But she was saying – that she’d heard nobody had seen Mother pregnant, and _everyone_ knows I’m nothing like Thor, and-”

“Loki,” Odin interrupted, because he could hear Loki working himself up, and he was not as good as Frigga at talking him out of his fits. “You are not like Thor because you are different people.”

“But I don’t look like him, or you, or Mother either,” Loki said, twisting on his lap to look at Odin with wide, wide eyes, full of fear but also trust. “And I just don’t understand _why._ ”

 _We can’t tell anyone,_ Odin had said to Frigga, looking down at Loki in his crib, sleeping like a perfectly ordinary Aesir babe. _The war has just ended. Hostilities are high. I would fear that they would harm him._

 _A baby?_ Frigga exclaimed, and he shook his head. She frowned. _When will we tell him, then?_

 _When things are calmer,_ Odin said. _We will sit him down, together, and tell him the truth._

The war had been over for decades. Aesir memories were long, but Loki was well known now, and well beloved. And even if they could not tell the people…he ought to tell Loki.

 _Let me call your mother,_ Odin could have said. _There is something we have to tell you._

 _You will always be my son,_ Odin could have said. _But you should know that you were not born on Asgard._

Instead he looked at Loki’s wide eyes, the fear and trust, and quailed. He knew the words that were still spoken of Frost Giants. Telling Loki now – it would only hurt him. Would make him feel as though he did not belong. And – was Loki not Aesir? He had grown up on Asgard, had changed his very skin in Odin’s hands. What did Jotun blood matter next to the fact that Loki was his son, Frigga’s son, Thor’s brother?

“Have I never told you of your great-grandmother Bestla?” Odin said. “You look very like her. Not all children look just like their parents, Loki. Frigga and I are your mother and father. Do not let shameful rumor shake that knowledge.” He kissed Loki’s temple. “Do you understand?”

Loki nodded, tension leaving his body as he slumped. “I understand,” he said. “I knew it wasn’t true, I just – got scared.” He threw his arms around Odin, head resting against his chest, and Odin felt sure he’d done the right thing.

There would be time later. Plenty of time.

* * *

**TWO.**

Odin rose out of sleep to hammering on his door. He stumbled out of his bed as Frigga groaned and over to the door, yanking it open prepared to growl at whoever was interrupting his rest that short of an attack on Asgard-

He blinked at Thor, standing there breathing hard and scared. “Father,” he gasped. “Something’s wrong with Loki!”

The words sent a jolt through Odin and he jerked, reaching for a robe by the door. “What is wrong?” He demanded, half out the door. “Frigga-”

“I’ll call the healers,” she said.

“He won’t wake up,” Thor said, and Odin’s blood ran like ice. “He keeps – _screaming_ but he won’t wake up,” and Thor looked like he was about to cry. Odin paused.

“Go to your mother,” he ordered. “Sit with her. You did the right thing in fetching me.” He rested a hand on Thor’s head.

“He’ll be all right?” Thor asked fearfully.

“I will make sure of it,” Odin said firmly, before heading off down the hallway to the boys’ rooms.

Loki had long struggled with nightmares, though of late they seemed to have abated. He remembered incidents like this when Loki was a toddler, though Thor likely did not. They had had the healers examine him, but there was never anything wrong. But it had been a long time since then, and Odin had assumed he’d grown out of it.

He opened Loki’s door and immediately his screaming burst into the hall. Odin ran to the bed, where Loki was lying, the blankets kicked off of him. He lifted Loki easily, holding him tightly to his chest. “Loki,” he murmured, reaching for his store of magic and using it to coax Loki’s mind gently out of sleep. “Wake. It’s only a dream. You can wake up. You’re safe.”

Loki thrashed and kicked as he woke, but Odin held him firm until Loki stopped struggling and started sobbing, and then he rocked gently back and forth, murmuring _shh, shh_ until Loki went limp in his arms, making wet, hiccupping noises.

“You’re all right,” Odin said, smoothing Loki’s hair back. “It was only a dream. Only a dream.”

“Father,” Loki said, and Odin let his son turn so he could burrow his face into his chest. Odin let him stay there for several minutes, until the rabbit heartbeat Odin could feel in his back slowed down and Eir appeared in the doorway.

“Is all well, All-Father?” She asked.

“I think we will be all right now,” Odin said, remaining where he was. Eir nodded.

“Would the little prince like a sleeping draught?”

Loki shook his head, but Odin crinkled his nose and nodded, mouthing _just a bit._ Eir nodded again and vanished.

“You won’t let them get me, will you?” Loki said, his voice small and muffled in Odin’s chest. Odin frowned.

“You know I will protect you from anything. Let who get you?”

“The Jotnar,” Loki said. He hiccupped. “They were in my dream. I kept trying to run away but they were running after me and they were going to eat me. It was so dark and so cold.”

Odin paused, feeling a little cold himself. He had long wondered if Loki’s nightmares were a part of his half-forgotten abandonment, and something about _so dark and so cold_ made him wonder again. But more alarming- “Who has been talking to you about the Jotnar?”

“The nurse,” Loki said, sounding weary. Maybe the sleeping draught wouldn’t be necessary. “She always says if Thor and I don’t behave the frost giants will get us. She says they can smell naughty children from a whole Realm away and they’ll come and eat us all up.”

Odin pressed his lips together and made a note to have the woman sacked. “You know none of that is true,” he said, keeping his anger out of his voice. “ _None_ of it.”

Loki seemed to consider that, sniffling. “I told her you’d never let any Jotnar in Asgard,” he said. “Because they’re our enemies-”

“Not anymore,” Odin said quickly. “The war is over now.”

“And _she_ said you keep pet Jotnar in the dungeons to punish Aesir children-”

The image popped into Odin’s head of Loki, down in the old cells that were no longer in use, chained up like an animal, and he nearly flinched. “Loki,” he said sharply, only to fight to moderate his tone when Loki flinched. “You _know_ I do no such thing.”

“And if any frost giants _did_ get into Asgard – you wouldn’t let them eat me, would you?” Loki asked anxiously.

 _I don’t like hearing you talk that way,_ Odin thought about saying, but Loki would only misunderstand his displeasure. He wondered, suddenly, if it would help Loki if he knew that he did not need to fear the Jotnar as monsters because he himself was one – but almost immediately he dismissed the thought. Not now, certainly, not when Loki was scared from horror stories told by his foolish nurse – he hadn’t known those sorts of tales were still in circulation. He had tried to keep the worst of Asgard’s resentment of the Jotnar from Loki’s ears, but…

_And how will you shield him as he grows older? As he trains with warriors who battled the frost giants, who call them beasts and brutes and worse?_

_Not now,_ Odin told that doubting voice at the back of his mind. _Not now. He is still only a child. He won’t understand._

“Of course I wouldn’t,” he said firmly. “I would not let anything harm you, Loki. You are safe here.”

* * *

**THREE.**

Only a little out of boyhood, Loki fell violently ill.

It started with a dry, hacking cough that was alarming enough, but at first Odin mistook it for nothing more than one of the minor ailments that the boy was prone to. Since his infancy they had been frequent but rarely severe, and both Odin and Frigga assumed that this was more of the same.

The cough subsided quickly, which seemed like proof of their initial assumptions, but a day later in the middle of a feast Loki vomited, narrowly missing his brother, and almost fell out of his chair when he tried to stand, legs trembling like a colt. Odin stood hastily and caught him before he fell, aware of the hall staring. Loki’s skin was clammy and cold, and his eyes struggled to focus on Odin’s face.

“What’s wrong with me?” He asked, voice trembling.

“To the healers,” Odin said roughly, trying to mask his own alarm. Thor was half standing as well, frowning.

“Loki? What is the matter?” He asked, and when Loki didn’t answer, looked to Odin. “Father?”

Odin shook his head. “Sit down, Thor,” he said, and gripped Loki’s shoulder to transport them both to the healing chambers.

“Where is Eir?” He demanded, once they arrived, and the apprentices took one look at his face and Loki beside him, trembling and pale, and scurried to find her. Odin tried to keep his face calm and his breathing steady, trying not to consider the worst. There were plagues, magical and otherwise, or the possibility of poison, or perhaps a curse…that no one else appeared to be ill, not even Thor from whom Loki was inseparable, made Odin think this was no ordinary illness.

What he had not considered was the possibility that it _was_ an ordinary illness – just not one that the Aesir were vulnerable to.

“I am familiar with this disease,” Eir said, speaking quietly, safely out of Loki’s hearing. “The Jotnar appear to be particularly vulnerable to its effects. Most Aesir contract it at least once, but it has little effect – they seldom even demonstrate symptoms. But for a frost giant…” She trailed off, her expression grave. “Allfather, this is serious.”

“How serious,” Odin demanded. Eir said nothing, but the look on her face told him enough. “Can you treat it?” he asked.

“Yes,” Eir said slowly. “I…believe so.”

“Good,” Odin said. He could hear the harshness in his voice and could not care. By the sound of it, Loki could have contracted this illness anywhere, from anyone. Simply by being – what he was, he was vulnerable in a way no others in Asgard were. Odin had not thought-

All the enemies he had considered as threats to Loki’s safety were ones he could fight. He had not anticipated that Loki’s very _body_ might be incompatible with Asgard.

He entered the healing room where Loki was lying shivering, his skin white as milk and shining with sweat. He tried to sit up when Odin entered. “Father,” he said. “Eir wouldn’t tell me what was wrong-”

“You are sick, my son,” Odin said, taking Loki’s shoulder and pushing him firmly back down. “You need to rest.” He’d meant the words to be soothing, but Loki’s alarm only spiked.

“I can’t be sick! We were going to Alfheim-”

“Alfheim will have to wait,” Odin said firmly. “I am sorry, Loki.”

Loki started crying, then, wet sobs that turned into choking, and he threw up again, some of it getting on Odin’s robes. Eir bustled in. “Out,” she said sternly, making little shooing motions with her hands. “My apologies, Allfather, but I need to see to my patient.”

Odin sighed and gave Loki’s shoulder a squeeze before obeying Eir’s orders. Thor was waiting for him outside the healing chambers, and pounced on him at once. “What is the matter?” he demanded. “Is Loki well? Can I see him?”

“Not right now, my son,” Odin said, and brushed past him.

**

In the end, Loki did recover, though it cost Eir (he was informed) several sleepless nights. Frigga was the first permitted in to see him once he was well enough to take visitors; Odin was the second. He tried not to wince at Loki’s worn look, too thin and exhausted. Odin would ensure the cooks had him fed back up to strength once he was fully healed.

“Father,” Loki said, his voice hoarse. He was propped up on several pillows, a forlorn, lost look on his face. “I am – I am very sorry.”

“Sorry?” Odin said gruffly. “Whatever for?”

Loki looked down at his hands, twisting together in his lap. “I…” He trailed off. “I am not certain. You seemed upset when we last spoke. I assumed it was because I spoiled the plans to go to Alfheim, and I was going to say that you could have gone without me-”

“Nonsense,” Odin interrupted. “Do not speak such foolishness, Loki. I will have none of it.” He sat down at Loki’s bedside. “What is most important is that you are well.”

“But-” Loki still did not look at him. Odin sighed.

“What is troubling you, boy?”

“Why did I get sick and Thor didn’t?” Loki asked. “We’re together all the time – but I fell ill and Thor is untouched. Why? Is there something…” He swallowed. “Something…wrong with me? That makes me – weak?”

Odin fell still. He had not expected…but of course he should have. Loki was clever, _too_ clever at times, and observant, and of course he had taken that and come to the worst conclusion, that it was some flaw of his, a weakness.

“No, my son,” Odin said firmly. “No, there is nothing wrong with you. It is only-”

For a moment, he almost said it. Almost told Loki, _it is because you are of different blood. Still my child, still my son, only by a chance of nature born of another race._ But Loki had just been ill. He was nervous already. How would he take the news that he was not born of the women he called Mother?

“It is only chance,” he said. “Some are affected differently by sicknesses.”

He knew he had said the wrong thing when Loki seemed to slump, looking down at his hands, and realized too late that it sounded like he was saying that Loki was weak. “I understand,” Loki said in a quiet voice. Odin opened his mouth to object that he did _not_ understand, but a runner knocked on the door to summon Odin to a council meeting and by the time he returned the melancholy seemed to have left Loki, and Odin did not want to bring it back.

It would be fine, he told himself. Youth was resilient, and Loki more than most. Like as not his worry was already forgotten.

* * *

**FOUR.**

Odin sat frowning, chin resting on one hand and watching Loki move through the hall. He seldom lingered with any one person for long, his laughter bright and smiles dazzling, but something false about the edges. Loki had always courted disfavor – some part of Odin suspected it was deliberate, a challenge to the world – but of late his mischief had grown sharper, if not quite cruel.

And yet when Odin had confronted him Loki had simply said “it will not happen again, Father” and excused himself.

Somewhere in adolescence, Odin thought, he had lost his ability to understand his younger son, and he was not sure when it had happened. Loki had always been shyer of display than his brother, but his emotions ran just as deep. As a boy Odin had been able to read them with ease, but now…

Odin could see the mask but not what lay behind it, and that made him nervous.

Perhaps, he thought, it was the secret that lay between them. The unspoken truth that he had put off for so long.

“I think it is time,” Odin said lowly, the words meant solely for Frigga’s ears.

“Time for what?” She asked absently, her eyes on Loki as well, though Odin thought she looked more fond than concerned.

“Time for us to tell him,” Odin said. That got his wife’s attention. Frigga turned fully and stared at him. “The celebration of Loki’s reaching his majority is tomorrow,” Odin said. “He ought to know…”

Frigga shook her head. “Sometimes with your sensitivity I think it is a marvel that you managed to win my heart.” Odin frowned.

“You think that would be insensitive?”

“Yes,” Frigga said promptly. “It is a day of _celebration,_ my husband. For him. And you would tarnish it by telling him that he is not of our blood?”

Odin pursed his lips. “It does not matter.” Frigga scoffed.

“Not to us, perhaps. But will it matter to _him?_ I believe so. I believe it will matter a great deal.”

“He ought to know,” Odin repeated, stubbornly. “A lie by omission is still a lie. I am surprised that Loki has not ferreted it out by now, and if he _should…_ that would be much worse than a small disappointment on his day of majority, would it not?”

“And how would he discover the truth?” Frigga asked. “Eir would never speak without your say so, and neither would Heimdall. No others know.” She paused. “In truth…I fear what Loki will think. Not just of us, but…of himself.” Odin looked at her, waiting. “You know how the warriors speak of the Jotnar,” Frigga said, quietly.

Odin nodded. He had hoped the talk would fade, but it had not. Centuries of peace did not make the Aesir any more kindly disposed toward the inhabitants of Jotunheim. “Loki is clever. Surely it will be obvious that he is no more a mindless beast than you or I.”

Frigga gave him a sad look. “In the heat of emotion what may seem logically obvious may be less clear.”

Odin frowned. “Then what are you suggesting? That we not tell him at all?”

“I did not say that.” Still, Frigga looked a bit as though she were considering it. Odin looked out at Loki, weaving his way through the crowd. His dark, slender son whose thoughts he no longer knew. Frigga, he thought, knew more. Should he have tried harder to maintain a connection with Loki? With Thor it was easy, but Loki…

“We should have told him before now,” Odin said, quietly. Frigga sighed.

“Probably we should have. But when he was a child…I did not want to.” She smiled, a bit sadly. “I resented them, perhaps, for abandoning him. I felt they did not deserve…but now I wonder if we have left it too long.”

Odin looked at Loki and saw his slightly false smile blossom into something broad and real as he turned his head. He followed the direction of his son’s eyes to Thor, who seized his brother and lifted him off his feet. He had considered, when Loki was young, that he might have the makings of a very advantageous solution to the Jotunheim problem. The thought had faded to the back of his mind, though, as Loki grew, as it became easy to forget that he was not Aesir at all.

“We will have to tell him eventually,” Odin said. Frigga laid one of her hands over his.

“Eventually,” she agreed. “But not tomorrow.”

“Not tomorrow,” Odin agreed. The time would come, and it must come soon. But Loki deserved a day of celebration, of happiness. Odin would not spoil that.

* * *

**FIVE.**

“Tafl?” Odin asked, gesturing to the board. Loki’s eyebrows arched, but after a moment he crossed the room and sat down. Odin examined him as he set up the board, considering. He had felt…something faintly _off_ about Loki, lately, but he could not tell what it was. It concerned him, somewhat. “You may have the first move.”

Loki sat straight-backed and very still, only leaning forward slightly. His body language was all scrupulously contained, carefully controlled. It reminded Odin of a spring, coiled tight before release. What kind of release remained to be seen. “I doubt you called me here for the purpose of a game, Father.” Loki spoke without looking at him, voice as carefully controlled as his movements.

“Can I not wish to pass time with my youngest son?” Odin asked. Loki’s eyes flicked up from the board for a moment before flicking away.

“You can,” Loki said, “but the All-Father’s days are very busy. It has been some time since we last played.”

Odin blinked. It seemed like it had been very recent, but thinking back…it had been years. He remembered teaching Loki this game, watching him lean forward over the board, lip in his teeth. A far cry, he thought, from this cautious near-stranger. “I suppose it has,” he said after a moment. “And in fact you are right. I wished to discuss some…matters with you.”

Loki sat back, his move made. “Thor’s coronation, I suppose?” He said, sounding amused. “That _is_ all anyone can talk about these days.” Odin heard the resentment, barely masked, and narrowed his eyes.

“You have known this was coming for some time,” he said. “Do you resent your brother for it?” He realized too late the chiding note in his voice. Loki smiled at him, the cool, polite smile he tended to wear at court functions.

“Of course not, Father. It is Thor’s birthright.”

Odin sighed and examined the board, taking his time and reminding himself to choose his words carefully. _Loki does not forget a single word from you,_ he remembered Frigga telling him, after they had quarreled once again. _He may act otherwise, but he hears what you say and what you do not._ “You know you will have your own place, and your own honor. Your brother is older, and it is important that Asgard sees that I have faith in him.”

Loki’s lips moved like he was considering saying something, but the moment, if moment it was, passed quickly. “Of course,” he said. “I understand.”

Odin narrowed his eyes, but it was impossible to see anything behind Loki’s placid expression. He sighed, and made his move in turn, considering his words carefully. “But that is not what I wished to discuss either.”

Loki’s head cocked slightly and Odin thought he truly had Loki’s attention now. “Oh?”

“I wished to ask for your thoughts on our current relationship with the Jotnar.”

Loki sat back, looking startled. “The frost giants? Why?” Odin simply looked at him, waiting, and Loki hummed. “I see. My thoughts, then…they are severely weakened. You have done well at keeping them from becoming a fresh threat to the Nine, but I suspect their hostility persists – perhaps even amplified.”

Odin nodded, though Loki’s phrasing made him feel faintly odd – even if that had been his intention to begin with, to prevent Laufey from causing further trouble in the weaker realms.

“A cunning foe,” Loki went on, “could use that hostility. If he were powerful as well, he might be able to give the Jotnar enough power that they could rise – if not to threaten us then certainly to threaten the likes of Midgard.” Loki paused, eying Odin. “They remain dangerous. I dislike having a knife at my back.”

Odin sat back himself, frowning. “You have a suggestion, I take it?” He had the feeling Loki was examining him, trying to read him just as Odin was trying to read Loki. It made the back of his neck prickle, that awareness of being – well, probed, by his own son. Tested, perhaps, as much as he was doing the testing.

Finally, Loki shrugged. “I do not. Though I do think Thor underestimates the threat posed-”

“We are not here to discuss Thor,” Odin interrupted. Something flashed across Loki’s face, a bright anger that was quickly smothered, but the glimpse of it made Odin tense. He was right that there was something lurking under Loki’s calm, but he could not tell what it was. “We are here to discuss _you,_ ” Odin tried to amend, but when Loki looked at him Odin was able to see what looked a great deal like mistrust in his eyes. Mistrust! From his own son!

“I do not have any suggestion,” Loki repeated. “If any occurs to me, I shall be certain to inform you.” He cocked his head at the _tafl_ board and his eyebrows furrowed. “Except, I would say…Father. You know the longer they are left as they are, they will continue to breed. Ignoring them will not make them go away. You must either offer a hand in peace – conditional, of course – or crush them into utter ruin so that there is nothing left.”

Odin looked at Loki, a little surprised. “You would have me offer peace?” He said slowly, feeling a faint stirring of hope. Loki shrugged.

“Why not? Bind the creatures to you. Even a beaten dog will crawl back to the hand that offers it food, no matter if the hand belongs to the one that beat it. Besides, the Jotnar are simple beasts, but I doubt they are so foolish as to refuse their salvation.”

Odin felt chilled. _Simple beasts. Creatures. A beaten dog._ Looking at Loki, talking so calmly about his own people…but leaning forward, his expression serious, Loki also looked closer than he had for the rest of the conversation, the gap between them narrowing. Odin saw his chance and took it.

“Loki,” he said, “is all well?”

Loki looked startled at the question. “Is all – what do you mean? Why do you ask?” Suspicious, Odin thought, and wary.

“You have been…withdrawn, of late,” Odin said, remembering Frigga’s words. _Loki needs reassurances that you care, my husband. He will not reach out if you do not reach first._ “Is there something troubling you?”

Loki hesitated. “I have told you what troubles me,” he said after a moment. “Thor-”

Odin let out a breath. “ _Loki._ I am not asking about _Thor._ ” He heard the frustration in his voice too late, and saw Loki’s expression close.

“Then I have nothing further to say,” he said, not quite coldly. “I need to make ready for the ceremony tomorrow, Father. If you would excuse me?”

“Why must you make things so difficult?” Odin said, again with too little thought, and Loki jerked. “I do not mean that _you_ are difficult.”

Loki’s spine was ramrod straight and his chin lifted, stubborn and almost defiant. “I understand.”

 _No,_ Odin wanted to say, _you do not,_ but he knew he had fumbled this conversation and it was likely beyond retrieval now. He looked at his son’s face, stubborn and hurt and above all _distant –_ and that was the operative word of their relationship now: _distant._

Somehow a gulf had opened up between them and he did not know how to close it.

“Loki, there is something I need to tell you,” Odin said suddenly, because Loki needed to know and he should have said it before. Because maybe honesty could fix things between them. Loki tensed, wary again, nervous – but also oddly vulnerable, hopeful. Odin wondered what it was he hoped for.

“Something?” He asked.

 _The Jotnar are simple beasts._ No, Odin thought. Loki would only see it as a slight. As more evidence of favoring Thor, perhaps. Truth would not mend whatever had gone awry. Cynically, Odin wondered if anything would.

“Tomorrow may be Thor’s day,” Odin said. “But your day will come.”

Some faint hope went out of Loki’s eyes, even as he smiled faintly and bowed his head. “Thank you for saying so, Father,” he said, quietly, and stood, his fingers resting lightly on the board between them. “May I be excused?”

Odin sighed. “You may go,” he said. Loki retreated quietly and Odin shook his head at his own folly. It had been so simple, picking up the babe from Jotunheim’s ice, deciding to bring him home. So simple. How could it have become so complicated?

No matter, Odin told himself. After Thor’s coronation, he would see to it that he sat down with Loki and made things clear. Told him the truth and found the source of his younger son’s recent strangeness, and the divide between them. He would not let Loki distract him with his petty jealousies of his older brother. He would ensure that Loki understood his place in this family, in this realm.

After the coronation, Odin told himself. There would be time.


End file.
